Christmas Memories

Last year Christmas sucked. There's no prettier way to say it. We'd bought and decorated a tree, then undecorated it two weeks later and gave it away to someone else to decorate once again. We opened Christmas presents two weeks early and then the kids and I drove away from our home in Idaho to find a new one in California. We spent Christmas day alone in a motel room while Aaron was stranded in Idaho, seriously sick and closing up our life in the place we'd hoped to never leave. Yes, it sucked. But this year we are making up for it.

I decided to do Christmas a little differently this year. The joke is that we are celebrating Hanukkah because instead of opening our presents all at once we are opening one gift a day for the week before Christmas. I thought this would give the kids a chance to really appreciate each individual gift instead of throwing one aside to open the next one. Along with opening a gift, we have been doing a fun family activity each day. So far we have driven around to look at Christmas lights, built Gingerbread houses, spent an evening playing Christmas games, and watched a Christmas movie together. Tomorrow will be our "Christmas around the world" night and on Christmas Eve we will have our "Shepherd's" dinner and read about Jesus' birth. So far, I am loving this new way of celebrating and the kids seem to be enjoying it too. I'm hoping we are creating such great Christmas memories this year that they won't remember the not so great once from last year!